Indian airlines ferry 'record' 1 crore passengers in May

Indian Airlines ferried over one crore passengers in May, setting a new "record" for maximum number of passengers flown in a month domestically, according to released data.

As per monthly traffic data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Indian airlines carried 101.74 lakh or 1.01 crore passengers last month as compared to 86.69 lakh passengers in May, 2016, registering a growth of 17.36 per cent in domestic air traffic.

"Aviation figures for May registers a new record with over 1 crore passengers flying domestically in a single month," Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha tweeted. The total number of passengers carried from January till May-end this year is at 4.65 crore as compared to 3.96 crore during the same period last year, which is a jump of 17.63 per cent.

This comes on the heels of passenger traffic picking up in the month of April this year after registering a decline in February and March.

Until January, the domestic passenger market posted over 20 per cent growth for 13 consecutive months.

In February, however, it fell by nearly 10 per cent to 15.77 per cent, further tumbling down to 14.91 per cent in March. As per the latest monthly report, IndiGo retained the number one spot in terms of market share with 41.91 lakh passengers in May followed by Jet Airways (15.51 lakh) and Air India (13.23 lakh). SpiceJet carried 12.79 lakh passengers while Go Air flew 8.64 lakh passengers, Vistara flew 3.34 lakh and AirAsia carried 3.32 lakh passengers.

As per Sydney-based aviation think-tank Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), India is the third largest aviation market in terms of domestic passenger traffic, behind only the US and China.

India is also likely to climb to third spot from fourth in terms of overall traffic (international and domestic) by March next year, which is two to three years ahead of what was projected, according to CAPA.